On this episode, Marisol Gonzalez was a top student at Mingus Union High School, had lots of friends and a close-knit family that loved her. In the summer before her junior year, she began dating one of her neighbors and classmates, Cecilio Criuz. Marisol hadn’t gone out with many boys, but she was taken in by Cecilio’s seemingly heartfelt affection and eventually fell for him – he was her first love. However, she quickly came to realize that she was far from the only one that he loved, and they broke up. Soon after, she found out she was pregnant. With the love and support of her family and friends, she decided she was going to have the baby. Many months later, on March 25, 1997, around 10pm, Marisol – now full term in her pregnancy – told her sister she was waiting for a call from Cecilio and went outside with the cordless phone. That was the last time she was seen alive. Around 6 a.m. her body was found in an alleyway a block away from her house. She had been shot once in the face. To this day, Marisol’s family, friends and the entire Cottonwood Community are shocked and devastated by her murder and that of her unborn child Andrew — and they desperately want justice.

“Cold Justice” is based on the idea that in small towns across America, cases involving violent crimes can often go cold because of a lack of funding, resources and state-of-the-art forensic technology. With the right resources though, it is possible that many of these cold cases can be re-opened and solved, bringing dangerous criminals to justice and providing closure for the families of their victims.

In TNT’s “Cold Justice,” Kelly Siegler, a former Texas prosecutor for 21 years who has successfully tried 68 murder cases, and Yolanda McClary, a former crime scene investigator who worked more than 7,000 cases in her 26 years on the Las Vegas Police Department, are putting their vast knowledge and experience to work helping local law-enforcement officers and families of violent-crime victims get to the truth. With a fresh set of eyes on old evidence, superior interrogation skills and access to advanced DNA technology and lab testing, Siegler and McClary are determined to bring about a legal and emotional resolution. Taking on a different unsolved crime each week, they will carefully re-examine evidence, question suspects and witnesses, and chase down leads in an attempt to solve cases that would have otherwise remained cold indefinitely.